"Oh, Vera, I thought of course you knew that I meant it," he says, rather incoherently. "We are engaged, and we are going to be married, aren't we, dear?"
"If you ask me," she says, with demure mirth, out of the happiness of her heart.
"I ask you now," he answers, laughing too. "Is it yes, Vera?"
She murmurs assent with a pretty assumption of coquetry, and bends her head for her second betrothal kiss, delighting her lover by the child-like gaiety that shows how her spirit is gradually throwing off the depressing influence of grief that has so long surrounded her.
"Then, Vera, I may write to my father, General Lockhart, and ask him to come over to the wedding?" he says, presently.
"What! and the trousseau not ready yet?" she laughs.
"Oh, my darling, you will write and order it at once, will you not?" he exclaims.
"I have already ordered it, Colonel Lockhart," she replies, demurely.
"What! before you were engaged?" he retorts, feeling it his turn to tease now.
"I had the prospect of a proposal, sir," she answers, with charming frankness.